Abstract:

People usually watch television with their family members and thus the context of family viewing needs to be thoroughly examined if we are to understand the family's use of television. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the intricate nature of television coviewing. Using Korean people meters data, we examine patterns of coviewing across demographic (and household) characteristics and program types. We also analyze zapping behavior in various coviewing situations. In order to fully explore the nature of coviewing, we elaborately divide coviewing situations into several categories based on the compositions of the coviewing audience and the family position of a viewer who is checking-in (commencing viewing). We demonstrate that detailed analyses of the people meters data provide valuable insights into the dynamics of coviewing behaviors.